Bioethics

A recent comment by Donald Trump caused something of a stir. What a surprise. This time, it was about abortion, and he said that there has to be “some kind of punishment” for the woman who chooses an abortion, should abortion be made illegal. The internet exploded, as people of both pro-choice and pro-life persuasions came out to discuss the topic, largely coming out against Trumps comments. Here, I want to discuss one post from a pro-life individual that offers a critique of the pro-life movement for not arguing for a harsher punishment of women who choose abortions, in the case of them being illegal. That post is entitled, “Problem in the Pro-Life Camp.” At the outset, it is worth revealing my bias in this. I am pro-life myself and I think that this is a complex topic that many pro-life persons have not thought deeply about. I am essentially editing and re-posting my comments here with some context.

The post in question begins by stating the “problem” with the pro-life camp:

The problem that I have with the “pro-life” movement in general is that much of it appeals to the woman as being the victim/or merely the accomplice to the crime. Rather, the mother is the transgressor who in the majority of cases, knowingly tested positive in her pregnancy test and nevertheless, storms into the abortion mill with premeditated murder. Whether the sin is done in ignorance or not, she is still morally culpable before God. She is not a victim.

Men and women are indeed victims when abortion is presented as the only logical choice or the only option. They are victims when people of specific races are targeted for abortion advertising. But whether one agrees on this or not, it is largely irrelevant to the primary point you’re making in this post. It seems that there are two issues raised in the post, but they are interlinked: the notion that the woman is a victim in abortion is false, and that is intrinsically linked to the notion that woman is morally culpable.

The original post asked, “Can an abortive mother who has malice of forethought be considered a victim and be morally responsible the same time? Morally responsible for what? when they are already deemed a victim.”

It seems to me that there are clear cases where someone who is a victim could still be morally culpable. A child soldier who has been forced into fighting for a cause they don’t believe in is a victim, yet the killing he or she may do is not without moral culpability. We may give a lighter sentence or charge than murder, but that doesn’t mean that this victim is without moral culpability whatsoever. Indeed, I think this is a far better analogy than the one with the bully utilized in the original post. (A bully beats up someone to take their money, and then sends others to do so; are they a victim?) After all, the analogy with the bully begins with the bully directly beating up someone else! The analogy, then, falls apart at the beginning, because I don’t know of any case (I suppose there could be such a case–but I would be surprised if it were even possible) where a woman performed an abortion on herself.

Now my analogy is to show that the notion of being a victim is not incompatible with the notion of being morally culpable. It does not demonstrate that the woman who seeks an abortion is a victim. Instead, my purpose was to show that the complaint of incompatibility is mistaken.

Thus, it seems to me that the pro-life person who maintains that a woman is, in some sense, morally culpable for the abortion, while also arguing or believing that the woman is, in some sense, a victim in such a situation is not being inconsistent.

The original post appealed to a question asked in a group of women who had abortions. They were asked whether they believed they were victims. I agree that self-definition is vastly important, but I also think it is easy to be mistaken about such things. For example, someone who is working as a prostitute may say that they are not a victim and they did it by choice, but even if they choose such a profession, the fact remains that the act of purchasing another’s body for sexual gratification does, indeed, victimize them whether they acknowledge it or not. I’m not saying that women who have abortions are prostitutes, obviously. My point is that self-defining oneself as “not a victim” does not make it the case.

To sum up: my response has sought to demonstrate two primary points. (1) The notion of someone being a victim does not necessarily undermine the notion of that person being morally culpable; (2) Self definition does not necessarily show us with certainty that someone is not a victim.

I would like to emphasize that these points don’t necessarily reflect my own views. I have, instead, written simply to show that the argument here is not sound.

Responses and Replies

The author of the original post kindly responded to my comments above. The comment can be viewed at the original post. I offer below my reply.

A woman cannot be both a victim or morally responsible at the same time. Either she is a victim or morally responsible (i.e. murderer)… I am using ‘victim’ in a more specific and literal fashion concerning a crime against the unborn.

As a result, it would be a logical fallacy (violates the law of non-contradiction and Scripture) to call a murderer a victim.

I think the conclusions here are hardly surprising, then. By what is written above, victim is being specifically defined as “a crime against the unborn” and then concluding, in accord with this definition, that anyone who disagrees is violating the law non-contradiction. Yet this is does not defeat the argument put forth above. I could just as easily say: “A woman can be both a victim and morally responsible at the same time. I am using ‘victim’ in the sense that makes this true. Therefore, disagreeing with me is fallacious.” Yet that is exactly what the response here has argued. I did assert that a woman can be a victim and morally responsible at the same time, but I defended that assertion with arguments.

Substantively we agree that it is a morally culpable act to seek an abortion. The area of disagreement remains as I outlined it in my original comment, and so far the response is simply to define out of existence any evidence to the contrary.

The author of the post followed with another response, arguing that the pro-life movement has consistently held that women are victims in abortions, but that they cannot be. He wrote,

abortive mothers are not victims, when they commit abortions… Either they are a victim or the transgressor when the abortion is committed.

In other words, what we have is simply a re-affirmation of the original point without argument. My purpose in commenting was to establish that being morally culpable is not incompatible with being a victim. I have been arguing all along this is a false dichotomy, and at no point has there been any attempt to refute the argument I’ve put forward. Each response has merely reasserted the initial premise without argument.

Because the purpose of my responses have been limited to the above point, I haven’t made an extended argument for how one might view the woman involved in abortion also as victim. Given the mere reassertion without argument, I believe that on some level my point has carried.

As a final question, I’d ask whether the author of this post, EvangelZ, believes that women are in no way harmed by abortion. That is, does he believe that abortion does not, in fact, lead to increased risk for breast cancer, that it leads to a higher risk of suicide, that it leads to increased risk for depression, that potential for future miscarriages is increased post-abortion, or that other risks (such as the possibility of the death or physical harm to the mother) are not, in fact damaging? The position of this post and the comments following it entail that no harm comes to the mother in any sense. After all, the mother is not–and according to the author–cannot be a victim (repeated claims of logical impossibility entail this). Hence, the woman cannot possibly be harmed by abortion, because that would entail that she is, in some sense, also a victim. Thus, EvangelZ or any who share this position are forced to conclude that abortion in no way causes harm to the mother. I think that is a pill too tough to swallow, because it seems obviously false.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from citations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is one of my all-time favorite shows. I have been watching through the series with my wife from the beginning and recently watched “The Mastepiece Society” from Season 5. The episode is a fascinating look into the moral issues of a society that wishes to control breeding. Here, we will examine some of these questions. For a plot summary, see here. There will be SPOILERS in what follows.

Eugenics/Genetics

The “Masterpiece” society is one in which they have actively worked to use genetic enhancement and therapy [see my post on genetic enhancement and therapy to get some background into this debate; see a differing opinion here] to try to create a perfect society. Diseases are genetically selected against; other alleged defects are also screened before birth (euphemistically referencing the termination of pregnancy); and other methods are hinted at.

One of the most poignant scenes is when Geordi La Forge, the Chief Engineer, is sitting down with Hannah Batesand they talk about his blindness. He challenges her on the notion that he would have been terminated before birth:

“It was the wish of our founders that no one have to suffer a life of disabilities.” – Bates
“Who gave them the right to decide whether or not I might have something to contribute?” – La Forge

After this brief discussion, it turns out in an ironic twist that Geordi’s visor that helps him see actually is the solution to saving the colony. This emphasizes his point: he does have much to contribute.

One can’t help but wonder about the echo that those unborn who are killed each and every day through abortion would raise. What contributions have we stolen from our society through the desire for convenience or other reasons for abortions?

Free Will

Suppose we were able to create a society in which we could select genetically the features we deemed best-suited for specific roles. What would this due to free will and the right to choose one’s own destiny? Jean-Luc Picard, the captain of the Enterprise, asks this very question.

It sounds like something wonderful: we can have sure and certain knowledge of what we’re going to do. There is no uncertainty; no worrying about a job. The society has been built around having you in the exact place you are to occupy based on your genetics.

Is there, in any sense, a right for children to not have their genetic qualities selected for them? I’ve discussed this very issue elsewhere, but I think this episode raises it fairly poignantly. Suppose someone was bred to be a leader in the society, but they felt they would rather be a construction worker? The society, it seems, would suffer in the sense that they now lack a leader; but perhaps someone else who would want to be a leader could step up to the task. Of course, as in the episode, one fears a kind of cascade effect in which people who would be perfect, allegedly, for the tasks they are destined to be assigned instead opt for tasks they can only “imperfectly” perform.

This, then, leads to questions of what it means to be “perfect” for a task. Are we merely genetically determined creatures, or does our freedom to choose transcend the genetic history we have been dealt? What benefits or costs might there be to a society in which you are trained from birth to occupy a specific role?

Conclusion

Star Trek frequently raises ethical issues, and “The Masterpiece Society” was particularly thoughtful. I’d recommend watching it and then reflecting on the worldview-level issues it raises. How much are we currently missing out on because of the system we have in place? What might we do ethically to improve our society without restricting the freedom of the individual? Is this latter question even important?

From a Christian perspective, it seems clear that it is impermissible to terminate humans simply because they are blind or have some genetic impairment. Here, it seems, the Christian perspective can also demonstrate its practical utility, for as Geordi demonstrated, we may miss out on quite a bit if we decide to allow such things to occur.

Regarding genetic enhancement, however, the issue is much more difficult. My perspective has shifted a bit, but I am still fairly wary of the notion. I admit this might purely be some kind of bias on my part that doesn’t have as much a rational foundation as I’d like to think. The post I shared earlier from a friend has some pretty strong arguments in the direction of genetic enhancement even from a Christian perspective. I recommend reading his post, and checking out my older post (about 2 years old) that I edited as I wrote this one.

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The photo in this episode was a screenshot capture of the episode. I claim no rights to it and use it under fair use.

SDG.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

One argument that is often used to defend certain acts which are argued to be immoral is the notion that these acts are “legal.” For example, one might say they are personally opposed to abortion, but it is legal and so they do not seek to end abortions. A more specific example has been the defense of Planned Parenthood in regards to donating fetal tissue. It is argued that the donation is legal, and so no wrongdoing has occurred. Evidence from the recent videos released seems to suggest that those fetal tissues might be sold, rather than donated, but that is not the issue at hand. The question to address here is: “Does the legality of an act make it moral?”

Thus, in the case of Planned Parenthood’s donations/sales, if legal, does it follow that it is moral?

To be blunt, the legality of an act is not enough to make it moral. One clear example of this would be antebellum slavery, which was legal for quite some time in the United States. Would those who want to assert that legality is enough to make an act morally permissible agree that slavery, at that time, was moral? If so, that is a tough pill to swallow. But we can go beyond that example and see how Nazi Germany was treated. After World War II, several of the perpetrators of the Holocaust and other atrocities committed by the Nazis were put on trial. The first of these became known as the Nuremberg Trials. The argument they made, however, was that they were obeying the law of their land. The argument was thus made that there was no law to which they could be held accountable.

The argument was rejected, and the legacy of these trials led to the creation of various international law organizations and more specific definitions of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But the question that must be pressed is whether these trials were just. The laws that they were condemned by were largely created after or during the trials themselves. What were the Nazis guilty of? The answer has already been provided, in part, as crimes against humanity. By willingly participating in and carrying out genocide and other atrocities, despite having orders to do so and acting within the laws of their land, the Nazis had still violated a higher law, which held them to a moral standard. There remains much debate over the legal basis for the convictions and executions of those who carried out the atrocities, but it seems that if one ultimately wants to argue that the law is all it requires to make something moral, they must side with the Nazis and agree that they should not have been held accountable for their acts.

We can therefore see that the mere appeal to a law to argue something is moral is not enough. Anyone who disagrees must assert that slavery, as it was being conducted in the United States, was at least morally ambiguous if not a moral good, because it was legal. Similarly, they must assert that the genocide the Nazis carried out was itself at least morally ambiguous if not a moral good, because it was legal and they did it under orders. The absurdity of these two conclusions should lead any reasonable person to agree that the legality of an act is not enough to establish its morality.

Thus, the simple legality of an act does not make it moral. An appeal to an acts legality does not mean it should be dismissed from moral scrutiny. Planned Parenthood should justly remain under intense scrutiny.

A Pro-Life Demonstration at the Supreme Court. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

I think it is an appropriate time to present a series of posts on Planned Parenthood and the wrongs that are being perpetuated within our midst. Thus, I have accumulated some resources from all over for your to browse and become more informed on regarding Planned Parenthood, abortion, and related issues. Please read and share these posts. We can no longer be silent: we must speak up for those who are unable to speak up for themselves.

Meet the Filmmaker Exposing Planned Parenthood– An interview with David Daleiden, the founder of the Center for Medical Process, the group that has released a number of videos exposing Planned Parenthood executives discussing the use of fetal body parts. A quote from the article: “All we had to do was say two things. Number one, that we supported their work. And number two, that we wanted to buy their fetal body parts. Those were the magic words. And they were willing to bend over backwards to accommodate that.”

Planned Parenthood Videos: Is this a Wilberforce Moment for the Church?– William Wilberforce was a defender of human rights who helped to get slavery outlawed across the British Empire. One of his strategies was to show people slave ships so that they couldn’t pretend not to know what was happening. The Planned Parenthood videos have shown only some of the horrors of abortion. We need to stand up, not look away, and refuse to allow it to continue.

“Keep Your Eye on the Ball”– A refutation of one of Planned Parenthood’s responses to the videos that are being released. It points to some of the absurdities being circulated in defense of Planned Parenthood.

Now We Know Her– A personal story about a family prepared to abort their child should any defects have been spotted. This post demonstrates some of the inconsistency in the pro-choice reasoning, but does so in a winsome and personal fashion.

Silence in the Face of Evil (Comic) – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor who was martyred by the Nazis for his resistance, argued that silence in the face of evil was itself an act: not to act is to act. Here’s a little quote from him alongside a comic.

One of the most common reactions to the Planned Parenthood videos has been the positive response and defense that largely consists of: “But they do good things for people too.”

Well, yes, they do.

It kind of reminds me of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. One of my favorite scenes is the one in which they’re planning a revolt against Rome and one persons asks “What have the Romans ever done for us?” The responses begin to pour in: they’ve built roads, aqueducts, improved education and public health, and more. It’s quite a funny scene.

The humorfades if you examine historical accounts of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 (as described by Josephus), for just one example. Families starved to death–whole households. The Temple–the center of the Jewish cosmos–was torn apart and defiled. Before that destruction, of course, there were other “minor” skirmishes and slaughters. The Romans imposed a governor over the area and a military garrison in Jerusalem.

What have the Romans done for us, indeed?

We can envision a host of ravenous pro-life faceless hordes crying out in their foolish ignorance: “What has Planned Parenthood ever done for us?”

A host of responses could–and have–been offered. Who has not seen the people sharing images of themselves as someone who benefited directly or indirectly from the healthcare Planned Parenthood provides? They provide health support during pregnancy, sexual education, birth control, and more. The stories can and do pour in. We can imagine a Monty Python spoof happening that parallels the scenario: the dithering pro-life horde is silenced by the constant stream of stories from those who have benefited from Planned Parenthood.

Then, the facts start to confront us. We see videos that show the broken apart body of the unborn being picked apart. Then, we realize that hundreds of thousands of these procedures happen each year in the United States. Skulls are crushed, but those performing the operation are doing it in such a way that the organs will–hopefully–be intact. These unborn body parts, themselves part of a clearly separate individual from the mother, are then donated for a price to research.

Suddenly, the humor fades. Our smiles are washed away. What price did Jerusalem pay for those aqueducts, education, and public order? Infants starved to death; slaughter until the soldiers “tired of killing.” What price do we pay Planned Parenthood for that birth control, those health screenings, and the other care they provide? You can watch the videos yourself and see the tiny hands and feet cut apart and distributed.

#StandwithPP, indeed.

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SDG.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from citations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

A Pro-Life Demonstration at the Supreme Court. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

The “violinist analogy” is an argument for the permissiveness of abortion. It is based on granting that the unborn is a human person, but argues that it is still permissible to kill the unborn because it may be justified as “non-intentional killing.” The argument originated with Judith Jarvis Thomson, to the best of my knowledge. She put the analogy like so:

You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you. (Thomson, cited below)

The argument seems to have much force. After all, who wouldn’t agree that you may be well within your rights to unplug yourself from this violinist. You aren’t obligated to him in any way.

There are a number of glaring difficulties with this argument (see this post for one argument against it), but the one I want to focus on now is tied to the recent controversy over the allegations of Planned Parenthood selling body parts. I’ve already pointed out one of the biggest problems is the question of “Whose body parts are they?” However, we may see that this controversy also undercuts the violinist analogy in a very brutal way.

Thomson has clearly massaged the analogy to make it seem fairly innocuous. After all, unplugging the violinist is fairly non-violent, right? You’re just having him removed from you so that you are no longer in the state of having to support him with your own body. But Thomson’s analogy needs to be amended. After all, Planned Parenthood itself acknowledges that they’re getting body parts from abortions and donating them. Thus, we might now fix Thomson’s argument for her to make it more accurate.

When the choice is made to “unplug” the violinist, it isn’t just unplugging him. Instead, those doing the unplugging are concerned with making sure that the violinist’s body parts come unplugged intact. They thus break his body apart in such a way as to preserve the heart, liver, brain, and other parts which might be used for science or saving the lives of other people. The violinist is not merely unplugged, but torn quite literally limb-from-limb in order to remove him.

Clearly, Thomson’s analogy has missed this point–a point Planned Parenthood itself acknowledges. For some reason, Thomson decided to smooth over these clinical facts in her “defense of abortion,” choosing instead to present it as something as simple and innocent as an “unplugging.” But the reality is that the analogy should point out that the choice involved is not merely to unplug the violinist but rather to have him effectively ripped from the one to whom he is hooked up in such a way that dismembers him.

There is good news, though: the parts of the violinist can now be used for research!

Source

Thomson, J. “A Defense of Abortion”. Philosophy and Public Affairs 1:1 (Autumn 1971): 47–66. Citation and quote found on Wikipedia.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from citations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

The recent revealing of a video that purports to show a Planned Parenthood employee talking about selling the body parts of aborted fetuses has caused a stir around the web. There have been, predictably, many different reactions to this video. Some have been skeptical, noting that Planned Parenthood itself claims to only receive reimbursement for the transportation of this “tissue.” Others have jumped to accuse Planned Parenthood of human trafficking. Tired labels rejected by those being labeled have been tossed back and forth, like “anti-abortion activists”; “murderers”; and the like.

I’m not going to dive into the controversy over whether careful editing made the video say more than it actually does, or whether Planned Parenthood needs to be shut down. It seems like investigations are already underway to look into this issue more deeply.

What I instead want to offer is a brief discussion of the question that is behind all of this controversy: “Whose body parts are they?”

To whom do these hearts, livers, lungs, and the like belong? Which body are they a part of? How you answer these questions is extremely important. If these are part of the mother, then the controversy may still stand–selling one’s own body parts would be questionable ethically. But if they’re not, then what?

The position that maintains these are just parts of the mother cannot be maintained. Does a mother, upon pregnancy, begin to grow an extra heart, extra limbs, an extra brain? How many brains do human beings have?

To maintain that this “tissue” is merely part of the mother that is being donated or sold for research (or whatever purposes) is absurd on its face. One would have to actually believe–not just argue for the sake of maintaining their position–that during pregnancy, a mother grows new parts of her body such as a brain, legs, and the like, which are all characterized by different DNA (unless cloned) and around 50% of the time has a different gender. That is, not to put too fine a point on it, one would have to actually claim that women grow penises.

So I ask you, dear readers. Whose body parts are they?

The outrage for selling these body parts may be on point. But how much greater should the outrage be at the fact that the body parts in question are those not of the mother, but of a distinct living organism with separate DNA?

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from citations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

I recently took the time to watch through a debate on pro-life method between Gregg Cunningham and T. Russell Hunter. I summarized the debate here, along with a brief introduction of what was seen to be at issue. Essentially, Cunningham endorses the position that we should pass laws to limit abortion as much as possible now while working towards the ultimate goal of ending all abortion, whereas Hunter argues that we must work only for legislation that will “abolish” all abortions now.

Cutting Off Branches vs. Save Babies Now?

T. Russell Hunter continually made the same error: reducing everything down to an either-or when it could just as easily be both-and. His analogy of the tree was used throughout the talk. Abortion is the tree, he argued, and we must cut the tree down rather than hacking off the branches which will then grow back. The tree is thus the whole of abortion, while the branches are the individual methods used for it, ways to advocate for abortion, and the like. His argument is that if we stop abortion with one method, another will grow up in its place. It’s a powerful image, but one that is ultimately full of rhetorical flair with little basis in reality.

Jill Stanek pointed out a number of problems with this analogy in her own analysis of the debate. First, she notes that the analogy is faulty because trees can spring up even from their roots, so hacking a tree down doesn’t necessarily end it. This point might seem trivial at first, but Hunter’s whole goal was to argue we need to cut down the tree so it can’t grow back (unlike the branches) to kill the tree. But the analogy fails because trees can grow back. Moreover, Stanek notes that when we cut down trees, we saw off the branches first anyway.

Second, and most importantly, Hunter’s analogy fails because he assumes branches can cut back. But this begs the question. Suppose there was a law passed that made abortion illegal after 20 weeks. How could a “method” or “branch” grow back in that place? It would be a total ban on all abortions past a certain point in time. Thus, there is no such thing as growing back. The branch would be dead, and we could move on to the next one. Cunningham also showed data demonstrating that even ending methods lowers the amount of abortions. So when a branch is cut off, the tree is weakened.

Finally, Hunter’s view entails that the children whose lives are saved by incremental legislation should have been left to die. Again, he would oppose (and the “Abolish Human Abortion” group has opposed) legislation to limit abortions or stop certain methods from being used. But this means that the babies that are demonstrably saved by such laws, according to Hunter, should have been allowed to die. This is an awful turn of justice into injustice.

False Dichotomy

Hunter’s position seems to be entirely based on a false dichotomy, which Cunningham pressed pointedly throughout the debate. Namely, the notion that one has to be either someone who works through incremental legislation, or one is someone who supports the immediate ending of all abortions now. But this is just false. Cunningham put it better than I can: the issue is that we can be immediatists morally–that is, we absolutely want to end abortion now–while being incrementalists in practice. We can work to stop all the abortions we can now, even though we want all abortions to stop.

Cunningham also accurately noted that Hunter’s position depends on the notion that if everyone who was a pro-life incrementalist got together right now, we could bring an immediate end to all abortions. But this has not played out in legislation. Cunningham himself noted this–if we don’t have the votes, we do not have the votes. Thus, we can work with legislation that we can get passed to save those babies that legislation can rescue now.

If Hunter wins this debate, the implication is that all of these pro-life laws that do not end all abortions now should be voted down. But what about the lives that those laws demonstrably save? Should we allow them to be aborted just because we can’t pass a law to save all babies? Obviously not.

Hunter’s position fails, and it does so spectacularly. It fails the tests in the actual legislative procedures, as strict pro-life legislation continues to fail to get any votes. It fails the test of accuracy, because pro-life persons can oppose all abortions ethically while working incrementally within the system we have. Finally, it fails to save babies now that can be saved through legislation.

One Question and Answer

I didn’t type up a summary of the Q+A session but at 2:24:19 on this video of the debate, the question was asked as to whether Hunter would be for a bill that abolished all abortion except for one child. Hunter briefly described a scenario in which someone came to him and offered this legislation: all abortion would be abolished in his name except for one child, who would be aborted. He graphically described the abortion. His response was “Get behind me Satan.” He argued that if you take this deal, you are compromising and you might be able to say you saved lots of babies, but it never bears fruit.

Cunningham’s response was that no, he wouldn’t support the bill, and added that we don’t have the votes to pass legislation banning abortion. Cunningham agreed that this deal would be abhorrent because it would kill a child.

I think this is what many people don’t realize. Many pro-life advocates (I have no idea of the numbers so I’m hesitant to say most) would argue vehemently against consequentialism, the notion that the consequences of an action are the most important aspect of a moral decision (I am simplifying for brevity). Thus, there is no “ends justify the means” mentality, so the thought of killing one child to save others was found to be morally repugnant to both speakers.

Conclusion

T. Russell Hunter’s position against other pro-life views cannot be reasonably sustained. It collapses in on itself when it is challenged to present us with reasons as to why we should not try to save what lives we can now on the way to the total ending of abortion. The examples he used were shown to be false or misguided. I think that we need to realize that to end abortion, we should work together. The amount of energy the “Abolish Human Abortion” group has put into attacking others’ methods is better suited to work towards a goal we share: the ending of abortion.

I would like to end noting that I do appreciate the work the AHA/Abolish Human Abortion group does go out and pray, picket, and work at abortion clinics to try to save the babies they can there. But I wish they would join other pro-life persons like Cunningham in helping the other babies that are within our power to save now.

Links

Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!

Is it Wrong to pass incremental pro-life laws?– Here is a snip of the debate from the cross examination portion in which T. Russell Hunter is challenged on whether he would choose to save lives with incrementalism or let babies die for the sake of immediatism.

The image used in this blog is not mine and I do not claim rights. I use it under fair use.

SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

I’ve been looking forward to this one, folks. Here we have a debate between Gregg Cunningham and T. Russell Hunter on “Pro-Life Incrementalism vs. Abolitionist Immediatism.” T. Russell Hunter, a member of the group “Abolish Human Abortion,” argued for “Abolitionist Immediatism,” which is effectively the position that we must only work for the immediate ban of abortion. He issued a challenge to so-called “pro-life incrementalists”–those who would allow for “gradual” steps to legislate abortion (i.e. banning abortions for gender selection, etc.)–to debate the topic. Gregg Cunningham, Executive Director of the Center for Bioethical Reform, took up the challenge.

I took the time to watch and reflect on this lengthy debate. Here, I provide an overview of the debate with summaries of the statements made throughout [I do not summarize the Q+A session]. My next post on this debate will be a commentary on the debate itself and the arguments presented therein. Here, I will stick as closely as I can the arguments as they are presented. I will not offer analysis of the arguments in this post. In my next post on this debate, I will go over many of the arguments found herein and offer reflections on the debate.

I’d love to read your thoughts on the debate. You can watch the debate here.

Hunter Opening

The debate between incrementalism and immediatism is ancient. It is ultimately a debate between “God has said” and “Did God really say?” [He quotes this.] Immediatism is not suggesting that something happens overnight, but is rather the working towards immediate action. American abolitionists against slavery were immediatists–they believed that slaves ought to be instantly set free. These immediatist abolitionist saw any incremental solution to slavery as something that would prolong the institution of slavery and opposed it entirely. They saw slavery as a national sin and the nation needed to immediately repent of the institution of slavery.

After citing a few abolitionists, Hunter argues that Wilberforce was an immediatist, not a gradualist as many pro-life incrementalists have argued. Total abolition, according to Wilberforce, is the only acceptable solution to slavery. Any delay allowing slavery to continue for even an hour undermines the notion that slavery is sin. Martin Luther King Jr. was also an immediatist and argued for the immediate ending of segregation and racial injustice.

Ultimately, the call for the immediate repentance and the doctrine of immediatism is found in the biblical prophets (Isaiah 1:16-17 among others).

Cunningham Opening

We [at the Center for Bioethical Reform] are moral immediatists but strategic and tactical incrementalists. This is not because the desire is only for incremental legislation, but because strategically it works. Hunter’s position presupposes that the pro-life movement has the power to end abortion right now but chooses not to. Strategically, we should work to save every baby by passing every law that the courts and public will allow.

Hunter’s position includes a number of factually incorrect statements. The pro-life position is not losing the battle over abortion. The pro-life position is not eager to compromise, nor is it comfortable with the current status. Hunter’s approach suggests that he is the only one praying; but the pro-life movement prays, but also works to pass every law to save every baby possible in the here-and-now. Peer-reviewed study shows that legislation that restricts or regulates abortion are saving babies’ lives. Abortion rate is falling in states in which funding is cut off, parental or other requirements are in written law, and the like. We can save those babies these laws save en route to abolishing abortion.

Pro-life lawmakers have put their seats on the line to try to draft pro-life legislation, and they have lost their positions due to their own pro-life views. Yet they have been proven to be effective–these laws save lives. Again, Cunningham asserted that we may be absolutists morally, but strategically must be incrementalists because that saves lives now.

Sometimes we need to compromise on our laws in order to get them passed and save lives now. (He uses an example of the rape exception clause and his own use of the rape exception clause in order to prevent Planned Parenthood from defining the clause, thus saving lives by making it as narrow as possible.) Years later, the evidence showed that not one abortion had happened with a rape exception clause, and this saved babies lives immediately, despite Cunningham himself being against rape exceptions.

Hunter is mistaken on William Wilberforce, who was a moral absolutist, but a strategic incrementalist. Wilberforce started off fighting the slave trade rather than directly abolishing slavery, and this demonstrated that he was out to save lives and end as much slavery as he could. Legislation Wilberforce supported forced slave ships to be redesigned and worked to put laws through that restricted the ports slave ships could use, etc. He worked incrementally to restrict and slow down slavery through slave trade as much as possible.

Hunter Rebuttal

Wilberforce did not author the bills that attacked the slave trade. He only sometimes voted for them and “often ridiculed” them.

There is no talking about abortion without talking about it as a spiritual issue. “Secular people need to hear that abortion is sin also.” It is people’s hatred of God which leads them to abortion. To modify bills to get them passed by including compromises regarding restrictions is “writing an iniquitous decree to pervert justice.” Every child who is aborted is an image bearer of God and one of our neighbors.

Making an occasion for sin allows it to grow. Through incremental legislation, abortion is perpetuated. When bans are placed on things like partial birth abortion, it is an attack on method, not on abortion itself. Thus, inevitably abortion methods will change and the banned method will end, but abortions will continue. Whenever one method is ended, another method takes precedence and abortion continues. Partial birth abortions are morally equivalent to any earlier abortion, and when we work to make things like that illegal, abortion continues and people focus on things like partial birth abortion rather than abortion at large.

Cunningham Rebuttal

The inescapable conclusion of Hunter’s argument is that until we can outlaw abortion, we should be utterly indifferent to the slaughter of the babies that we can save now. Instead, we should be committed to saving every baby that we can now. While we move towards the goal of ending all abortion, we should not allow those babies we can save to die.

Wilberforce gave a speech to Parliament in which he advocated paying compensation to slave owners for their freed slaves weeks before his death. He did this because he didn’t have the votes to get abolition without compensation. This was a strategic move, not indicative of the moral absolute of ending slavery now.

Hunter’s argument that pro-life incrementalists imply that abortion is okay when they try to regulate abortion is absurd on its face. It is not as though by saving a baby because dismemberment laws were passed, someone is then advocating the position that abortion that is not dismemberment is suddenly okay. Incremental legislation saves and changes what it can when it can; it does not at all imply that the whole system is acceptable.

Hunter criticizes those who spend times fundraising, but the very images he uses that show abortions would have been impossible without fundraising and the professionals who take the photographs and obtain the images.

Cross Examination

[I do not type up every question and answer in these Cross-Exam portions.]

Cunningham: Hunter is critical of pro-life people working with secular people and the like in order to try to end abortion. If, hypothetically, your child falls into a swimming pool, would you quiz the paramedics about their worldview before letting them resuscitate your child?Hunter: I would want them to resuscitate my child. That’s a straw man. When we fight evils, we do need to fight them on God’s terms. If we want the power of God on our side, we should not join hands with a “God-hating worldview” because secular worldviews are the very things that make abortions possible. Making strategies with people who adopt the worldview that allows for abortion perpetuates abortion.

Cunningham: I’m not the one who decides what the limits are on legal restraints for abortion. The public decides what the restraints are by what they will allow and vote for. Hunter’s position suggests that pro-life advocates have the power to end abortion now and choose not to do it. This is mistaken because attempts to end all abortion immediately continue to fail to be voted in.Hunter: I would not put a bill forward to begin with.Cunningham: Do you care about the lives of the babies?Hunter: Yes.Cunningham: Then why do you suggest we shouldn’t vote for legislation that saves these babies lives?Hunter: Children are not increments.Cunningham: We can do both.

Cunningham: Why can we not work to save babies through incremental legislation while working to end abortion entirely?Hunter: You can do both as long as you don’t undermine the whole project. The rape exception is always brought up. People begin to believe that murdering children is okay if exceptions are in place.

Cunningham: Do you understand the difference between a moral immediatist (with strategic incrementalism) and pure incrementalism or compromise?Hunter: Yes.Cunningham: Why do you insist on conflating the two?Hunter: Because if you undermine your own immediatism, you are what the word of God says someone who perverts justice.

Cunningham: Should we allow these babies to die rather than enact incremental legislation? [This is a key portion of the debate. See the transcript of this entire question and answer here.]Hunter: Abortion is evil and it is one of the things that the powers and principalities of darkness endorse. If they can keep abortion going by deceiving people into becoming gradualists, then that will be allowed.Cunningham: Let’s be both [incrementalists and immediatists]. Let’s be both.

Hunter: Is it that you don’t want to deal with immediatism, or do you just want to avoid the conversation about immediatism?Cunningham: I’m determined to save that baby [through incremental legislation], and that’s an immediate kind of thing. We can be both immediatists and incrementalists. It is a false dilemma.Hunter: Do you believe we have to fight abortion as abortion and sin?Cunningham: We have to use clauses which the courts will allow because they strike down legislation that is complete ending of abortion.

Hunter: How do you do “both” [immediatism/incrementalism]?Cunningham: The way people have continually done both. We can talk about abortion as sin and as a human rights violation, while working to end as much of it as we can. It does not have to be either/or. Hunter tends to be binary without justification.

Hunter: Do you think the church is doing enough to work against abortion and do you think that incremental bills encourage apathy?Cunningham: The church is not doing enough and we are not educating our pastors enough to combat abortion.Hunter: I see apathy tied into incremental legislation because when I ask pastors to help and go to abortion clinics and the like, I hear them cite their support of incremental legislation.Cunningham: The reason for this is because the pastors are poorly trained.

Hunter: Do you think that people are more likely to oppose abortion if we convert them? Do you think it is a wise strategy to deal differently with secularists and Christians?Cunningham: We don’t know who believes what. It is not either/or. We make sure both sets of people here both sets of argument, including getting the opportunity to share faith in Christ.Hunter: I have e-mails from you saying you bring different displays to Christian schools and state schools. Do you think it is folly to try to call the nation to repent of abortion?Cunningham: We should work to make every argument we can make to save the life of every baby whose life is imperiled, and this includes passing every law we can pass now to save every baby we can.

Hunter Closing

Isaiah 30 (reads). Pro-life incrementalists are like the Israelites running to Egypt instead of God. People, instead of trusting in the word of God and going into conflict with the people of the age, go and look at the laws to see what they can get within the current federal ruling. We must cut down the tree itself rather than the branches. Incrementalism is not in the Bible. It is not in the historical record. If you believe and trust in God, then you would be an immediatist.

Cunningham Closing

We don’t have to do either immediatism or incrementalism, we can do both. Hunter doesn’t find incrementalism in the Bible, but it is in the Bible: 1 Corinthians 3 shows that God reveals revelation incrementally. Mark 10 shows that the Law was incrementally revealed over time regarding divorce laws, which became much more restrictive over time, working with people over time. Regarding the temple tax, Jesus saw that he did not owe the temple tax, but he paid it anyway in order to compromise and pick the battles. It is possible to save babies incrementally and not do so to the exclusion of trying to save all the babies. Hunter’s position does not save babies now. The position does not allow for the love of Christ.

Conclusion

I will be offering analysis of this debate in a coming blog post. Please feel free to comment yourself on what you think of the debate and the arguments put forward therein here (and on the future post as well).

Is it Wrong to pass incremental pro-life laws?– Here is a snip of the debate from the cross examination portion in which T. Russell Hunter is challenged on whether he would choose to save lives with incrementalism or let babies die for the sake of immediatism.

The image used in this blog is not mine and I do not claim rights. I use it under fair use.

SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

One common argument for the pro-choice position is what I shall call the “dependency” argument for abortion. This argument suggests that because the unborn is dependent in a unique way upon the mother, abortion is permissible. For example, one might argue that because a fetus cannot survive without the direct use of the mother’s body, the unborn does not have a right to life. The status of dependency upon another being in such an intimate and unique fashion means that abortion is permissible, according to this argument.

One way to respond to this argument is to show that the dependency of the unborn upon the mother is not relevantly unique. For example, one may cite the dependency of a newborn upon his or her parents, of a person hooked up to an artificial heart or some other dependency-creating situation. However, here we will consider what I think is a more direct and intractable problem for the abortion advocate. Namely, that the dependency argument yields an inescapable dilemma for their position.

The Thought Experiment

Suppose we were able to create artificial wombs–something which doesn’t seem all that preposterous given that it’s being worked on right now–to which we were able to move the unborn at any point up to birth and allow to grow there. In this case, the growing being is not dependent upon its mother or even any woman or person. We may cut out the people doing maintenance on the artificial wombs by having some kind of automated maintenance system.

The Dilemma

Would it be permissible to terminate the unborn within the artificial womb?

If so, then the grounding for abortion on the notion that the unborn is in a relevantly dependent situation related to the mother cannot be correct. For in this case the unborn is not in that dependent situation, yet the pro-choice advocate still maintains a right to abort. If it is not permissible, then there must be some reason why it is not permissible to abort once the unborn is no longer within the mother, and this reason would have to be one that could, in a way that is not ad hoc, not apply to the unborn when inside the mother.

I think this is a serious dilemma for those who use the “dependency” argument in order to ground objections to abortion.

Answering the Dilemma

Perhaps one might try to answer the dilemma by embracing the second horn of the dilemma and suggesting that once the dependency situation is removed, then the right to abort is also removed. However, the same type of dependency which the unborn is in with the mother has simply been transferred to an artificial womb. Perhaps, however, one cannot be relevantly (morally) dependent upon a machine. But this is to effectively beg the question, for the very grounds of the pro-choice argument is that it is dependency which creates a state of permissive abortion. Perhaps they could modify their stance and say that it is actually dependency upon the mother alone. But here is where the danger of an “ad hoc” stance rears its ugly head, because the relevant criterion–dependency–is maintained while it is the location of the unborn which has shifted. If dependency is alleged to be enough to ground abortion rights, then smuggling in additional premises alongside dependency defeats the initial argument.

The point needs to be emphasized: I think this is the best route for the pro-choice advocate to try to go to avoid the conclusions of the dilemma, but if they do go down this route it raises even more questions for their position. First, if we suppose that dependency must be on a person to be morally relevant, than it undermines the notion of dependency as the reasoning for allowing abortion to begin with. For, in this case, it would be the person grounding the moral status, not the dependency. Second, to embrace this horn means that the pro-choice advocate is effectively granting that the unborn has some right to live, so long as it is not in this relevant state of dependency. This is a startling admission, and it must be emphasized that this means, frankly, that according to the pro-choice advocate a being with a right to live has that right suspended so long as a valid “dependency criterion” can be met. The implications of this would be enormous.

Moreover, if we grant that the second horn may be embraced by means of saying that if dependency is removed, then it follows that any possible way to remove the dependency situation, if such a way could become reality, makes abortion impermissible.

Free Wombs?

Now, suppose further there were a foundation that was willing and able to pay for anyone (anywhere and anytime) to move their unborn into an artificial womb rather than abort the fetus. For the sake of argument, we will assume this is a risk-free type of procedure, with relevant clinical test results, etc., etc. This strengthens the dilemma posed above because at this point, there is effectively no dependency upon mothers beyond conception. For, the moment a woman finds she is pregnant, she could phone this foundation and transfer the unborn to an artificial womb, relinquish any claim to parental rights, and be done. But if this were the case, then dependency would in a sense no longer exist. The unwanted pregnancy could immediately be ended without the termination of the fetus.

Once again, it seems that in this situation only the location of the unborn remains relevant, should the pro-choice advocate wish to maintain the right to abort. The mother could choose to end her pregnancy by transferring the unborn and all rights/knowledge of/etc. thereof elsewhere at any point.

I realize that some may object and say that having a surgical procedure is an inconvenience, no matter how safe, quick, successful, secret, etc. it might be. But at that point I must wonder where the line is drawn for abortion. After all, if the scenario envisioned above really did exist, and someone really did want to maintain the right to abort, what they would have to be saying is that something thought to be inconvenient alone is enough to abort. Setting aside the fact that abortion is also a procedure–and one with risks–at this point I think I would point out that the dependency argument has been shown to be mistaken, because the pro-choice advocate must now base his or her argument upon the “convenience” of the mother.

Conclusion

It appears to me that the only recourse the pro-choice advocate has with regard to the dependency argument is to argue that location really is a relevant criterion for allowing for abortion. But in that case, dependency ceases to be the factor which grounds the right to abort, and thus the dependency argument fails.

I’m fairly sure I’ve read a similar argument to the one I present here somewhere. However, I do not remember where I may have read it and regret to omit a reference to it here.

Links

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.